After years of favoring loose, naturalistic styles, trends in garden design are shifting slightly back toward formalism-with a modern twist. From one of today's most decorated garden designers comes a volume that reveals in thirty exquisitely planted gardens dozens of ideas on how to adapt traditional garden design elements for today's more ecologically based aesthetics.

Over her thirty-year career, decorated designer Jo Thompson has become recognized as master of creating decadently planted, well-proportioned, English-style gardens rendered modern by a staunch commitment to biodiversity-to the eye this translates as a looser formality than English gardens of the past, though they are still every bit as luscious. Thompson peppers her wonderfully witty texts with a dash of lore as a nod to the idea that we are not, in fact, in complete charge of how our gardens grow; other forces are always at work, as they should be when we allow sustainable practices to help us guide rather than try to dominate nature's own efforts. Hundreds of beautiful color photos and chapter-by-chapter case studies of individual gardens designed around various themes provide inspiration for all gardeners who want their gardens to feel not merely well planted, but truly alive.